Features and Settings that Affect Availability

Learn about all the features and settings that affect your business's online appointment availability

Written by Cornelia Updated over a week ago

There are a number of settings that affect your business, staff and service availability in Genbook. The following is a comprehensive list of these settings, with links to Help Center articles that elaborate on how they operate and how to edit them.

Business-wide settings:

These affect all availability for the entire business (all staff and services).

Operating Hours (Settings > "Operating Hours"): These dictate all the times your business is open for appointments, and determine the hours you see on your calendar when you are logged into your Genbook account.

Closed Dates (Settings > "Closed Dates"): The dates listed here will be unavailable for online booking. This is where you'd list holidays, vacations, and other dates your entire business will be closed. Learn more about Closed Dates.

Appointment Lead Times (Settings > "Appointment Lead Times"): These determine a minimum and maximum amount of time prior to an appointment that a client can schedule it. The more restrictive you make these, the less availability clients will have to choose from. Learn more about Appointment Lead Times.

Online Start Times (Settings > "Online Start Times"): These set either the exact appointment times (Manual mode) or time increments (Automatic mode) at which appointments can be booked by your clients. Learn more about Online Start Times.

Staff-level settings:

These work within the business-wide settings listed above, affecting only the availability of a particular staff member.

Staff Hours (Settings > Staff > staff member's name > "Staff Hours"): This feature sets individual staff members' availability and schedules within the business's operating hours. This is a weekly recurring setting, but can be overridden directly in the calendar, for specific dates. Learn more about Staff Hours.

Away Dates (Settings > Staff > staff member's name > "Away Dates"): The dates listed here indicate when the staff member is unavailable for booking. This is where you'll list your staff members' vacation and other non-working dates. Learn more about Away Dates.

Service-level settings:

These work within both the staff and business-level settings to determine availability for a particular service.

Online Availability (Settings > Services > service title > "Online Availability"): This feature dictates the schedules for particular services. These work in conjunction with staff and business level availability. Learn more about Online Availability for services.

If you notice availability discrepancies or problems in your account, you should check that all the settings listed above are configured correctly.